As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which hereceived from those who, bewitched by his fascinating society,and indebted for all the comforts of life to his generous anddelicate friendship, worshipped him nightly, in his favouritetemple at Button's. But, after full inquiry and impartialreflection, we have long been convinced that he deserved as muchlove and esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm anderring race. Some blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in hischaracter; but the more carefully it is examined, the more willit appear, to use the phrase of the old anatomists, sound in thenoble parts, free from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice, ofcruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may easily be named, inwhom some particular good disposition has been more conspicuousthan in Addison. But the just harmony of qualities, the exacttemper between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitualobservance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but ofmoral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men who havebeen tried by equally strong temptations, and about whose conductwe possess equally full information.

His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, who, thougheclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some figure in theworld, and occupies with credit, two folio pages in theBiographia Britannica. Lancelot was sent up, as a poor scholar,from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of theCommonwealth, made some progress in learning, became, like mostof his fellow-students, a violent Royalist, lampooned the headsof the University, and was forced to ask pardon on his bendedknees. When he had left college, he earned a humble subsistenceby reading the liturgy of the fallen Church to the families ofthose sturdy squires whose manor-houses were scattered over theWild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loyalty was rewardedwith the post of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. WhenDunkirk was sold to France, he lost his employment. But Tangierhad been ceded by Portugal to England as part of the marriageportion of the Infanta Catherine; and to Tangier Lancelot Addisonwas sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. Itwas difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were moretormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers withinthe wall or by the Moors without it. One advantage the chaplainhad. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity of studying the historyand manners of Jews and Mahometans and of this opportunity heappears to have made excellent use. On his return to England,after some years of banishment, he published an interestingvolume on the Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on theHebrew Customs and the State of Rabbinical Learning. He rose toeminence in his profession, and became one of the royalchaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, andDean of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made abishop after the Revolution, if he had not given offence to theGovernment by strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 1689,the liberal policy of William and Tillotson.

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from Tangier, hisson Joseph was born. Of Joseph's childhood we know little. Helearned his rudiments at school in his father's neighbourhood,and was then sent to the Charter House. The anecdotes which arepopularly related about his boyish tricks do not harmonise verywell with what we know of his riper years. There remains atradition that he was the ringleader in a barring out, andanother tradition that he ran away from school and hid himself ina wood, where he fed on berries and slept in a hollow tree, tillafter a long search he was discovered and brought home. If thesestories be true, it would be curious to know by what moraldiscipline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformedinto the gentlest and most modest of men.

We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks may havebeen, he pursued his studies vigorously and successfully. Atfifteen he was not only fit for the university, but carriedthither a classical taste and a stock of learning which wouldhave done honour to a Master of Arts. He was entered at Queen'sCollege, Oxford; but he had not been many months there, when someof his Latin verses fell by accident into the hands of Dr.Lancaster, Dean of Magdalen College. The young scholar's dictionand versification were already such as veteran professors mightenvy. Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a boy of such promise;nor was an opportunity long wanting. The Revolution had justtaken place; and nowhere had it been hailed with more delightthan at Magdalen College. That great and opulent corporation hadbeen treated by James, and by his Chancellor, with an insolenceand injustice which, even in such a Prince and in such aMinister, may justly excite amazement, and which had done morethan even the prosecution of the Bishops to alienate the Churchof England from the throne. A president, duly elected, had beenviolently expelled from his dwelling: a Papist had been set overthe society by a royal mandate: the Fellows who, in conformitywith their oaths, had refused to submit to this usurper, had beendriven forth from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die ofwant or to live on charity. But the day of redress andretribution speedily came. The intruders were ejected: thevenerable House was again inhabited by its old inmates: learningflourished under the rule of the wise and virtuous Hough; andwith learning was united a mild and liberal spirit too oftenwanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. In consequence of thetroubles through which the society had passed, there had been novalid election of new members during the year 1688. In 1689,therefore, there was twice the ordinary number of vacancies; andthus Dr. Lancaster found it easy to procure for his young friendadmittance to the advantages of a foundation then generallyesteemed the wealthiest in Europe.

At Magdalen Addison resided during ten years. He was, at first,one of those scholars who were called Demies, but wassubsequently elected a Fellow. His college is still proud of hisname: his portrait still hangs in the hall; and strangers arestill told that his favourite walk was under the elms whichfringe the meadow on the banks of the Cherwell. It is said, andis highly probable, that he was distinguished among his fellow-students by the delicacy of his feelings, by the shyness of hismanners, and by the assiduity with which he often prolonged hisstudies far into the night. It is certain that his reputation forability and learning stood high. Many years later, the ancientdoctors of Magdalen continued to talk in their common room of hisboyish compositions, and expressed their sorrow that no copy ofexercises so remarkable had been preserved.

It is proper, however, to remark that Miss Aikin has committedthe error, very pardonable in a lady, of overrating Addison'sclassical attainments. In one department of learning, indeed, hisproficiency was such as it is hardly possible to overrate. Hisknowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and Catullus down toClaudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound. Heunderstood them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and hadthe finest and most discriminating perception of all theirpeculiarities of style and melody; nay, he copied their mannerwith admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all their Britishimitators who had preceded him, Buchanan and Milton aloneexcepted. This is high praise; and beyond this we cannot withjustice go. It is clear that Addison's serious attention duringhis residence at the university, was almost entirely concentratedon Latin poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect otherprovinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them only acursory glance. He does not appear to have attained more than anordinary acquaintance with the political and moral writers ofRome; nor was his own Latin prose by any means equal to his LatinVerse. His knowledge of Greek, though doubtless such as was, inhis time, thought respectable at Oxford, was evidently less thanthat which many lads now carry away every year from Eton andRugby. A minute examination of his works, if we had time to makesuch an examination, would fully bear out these remarks. We willbriefly advert to a few of the facts on which our judgment isgrounded.

Great praise is due to the Notes which Addison appended to hisversion of the second and third books of the Metamorphoses. Yetthose notes, while they show him to have been, in his own domain,an accomplished scholar, show also how confined that domain was.They are rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statius, andClaudian; but they contain not a single illustration drawn fromthe Greek poets. Now, if, in the whole compass of Latinliterature, there be a passage which stands in need ofillustration drawn from the Greek poets, it is the story ofPentheus in the third book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid wasindebted for that story to Euripides and Theocritus, both of whomhe has sometimes followed minutely. But neither to Euripides norto Theocritus does Addison make the faintest allusion; and we,therefore, believe that we do not wrong him by supposing that hehad little or no knowledge of their works.

His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quotationshappily introduced; but scarcely one of those quotations is inprose. He draws more illustrations from Ausonius and Maniliusthan from Cicero. Even his notions of the political and militaryaffairs of the Romans seem to be derived from poets andpoetasters. Spots made memorable by events which have changed thedestinies of the world, and which have been worthily recorded bygreat historians, bring to his mind only scraps of some ancientversifier. In the gorge of the Apennines he naturally remembersthe hardships which Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds tocite, not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not thepicturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters ofSilius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks ofPlutarch's lively description, or of the stern conciseness of theCommentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so forciblyexpress the alternations of hope and fear in a sensitive mind ata great crisis. His only authority for the events of the civilwar is Lucan.

All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence are Greek.Addison saw them, however, without recalling one single verse ofPindar, of Callimachus, or of the Attic dramatists; but theybrought to his recollection innumerable passages of Horace,Juvenal, Statius, and Ovid.

The same may be said of the Treatise on Medals. In that pleasingwork we find about three hundred passages extracted with greatjudgment from the Roman poets; but we do not recollect a singlepassage taken from any Roman orator or historian; and we areconfident that not a line is quoted from any Greek writer. Noperson, who had derived all his information on the subject ofmedals from Addison, would suspect that the Greek coins were inhistorical interest equal, and in beauty of execution farsuperior to those of Rome.

If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addison'sclassical knowledge was confined within narrow limits, that proofwould be furnished by his Essay on the Evidences of Christianity.The Roman poets throw little or no light on the literary andhistorical questions which he is under the necessity of examiningin that Essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the dark; andit is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way fromblunder to blunder. He assigns, as grounds for his religiousbelief, stories as absurd as that of the Cock-Lane ghost, andforgeries as rank as Ireland's Vortigern, puts faith in the lieabout the Thundering Legion, is convinced that Tiberius moved thesenate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the letterof Abgarus King of Edessa to be a record of great authority. Norwere these errors the effects of superstition; for tosuperstition Addison was by no means prone. The truth is that hewas writing about what he did not understand.

Miss Aikin has discovered a letter, from which it appears that,while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one of several writerswhom the booksellers engaged to make an English version ofHerodotus; and she infers that he must have been a good Greekscholar. We can allow very little weight to this argument, whenwe consider that his fellow-labourers were to have been Boyle andBlackmore. Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author ofthe worst book on Greek history and philology that ever wasprinted; and this book, bad as it is, Boyle was unable to producewithout help. Of Blackmore's attainments in the ancient tongues,it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has confoundedan aphorism with an apophthegm, and that when, in his verse, hetreats of classical subjects, his habit is to regale his readerswith four false quantities to a page.

It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addison were ofas much service to him as if they had been more extensive. Theworld generally gives its admiration, not to the man who doeswhat nobody else even attempts to do, but to the man who doesbest what multitudes do well. Bentley was so immeasurablysuperior to all the other scholars of his time that few amongthem could discover his superiority. But the accomplishment inwhich Addison excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now,highly valued and assiduously cultivated at all English seats oflearning. Everybody who had been at a public school had writtenLatin verses; many had written such verses with tolerablesuccess, and were quite able to appreciate, though by no meansable to rival, the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. Hislines on the Barometer and the Bowling Green were applauded byhundreds, to whom the Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalariswas as unintelligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk.

Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are common to allAddison's Latin poems. Our favourite piece is the Battle of theCranes and Pigmies; for in that piece we discern a gleam of thefancy and humour which many years later enlivened thousands ofbreakfast tables. Swift boasted that he was never known to steala hint; and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors asany modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that heborrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest touches inhis "Voyage to Lilliput" from Addison's verses. Let our readersjudge.

"The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is Tatler by about the breadth ofmy nail than any of his court, which alone is enough to strike anawe into the beholders."

About thirty years before Gulliver's Travels appeared, Addisonwrote these lines:

The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired bothat Oxford and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard bythe wits who thronged the coffee-houses round Drury Lane Theatre.In his twenty-second year, he ventured to appear before thepublic as a writer of English verse. He addressed somecomplimentary lines to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and manyreverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely eminenceamong the literary men of that age. Dryden appears to have beenmuch gratified by the young scholar's praise; and an interchangeof civilities and good offices followed. Addison was probablyintroduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was certainly presented byCongreve to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor of theExchequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons.

At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself to poetry.He published a translation of part of the fourth Georgic, LinesonKing William, and other performances of equal value, that is tosay, of no value at all. But in those days, the public was in thehabit of receiving with applause pieces which would now havelittle chance of obtaining the Newdigate prize or the Seatonianprize. And the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet was then thefavourite measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, sothat the lines may flow smoothly, that the accents may fallcorrectly, that the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and thatthere may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an art asmechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, andmay be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learnanything. But, like other mechanical arts, it was graduallyimproved by means of many experiments and many failures. It wasreserved for Pope to discover the trick, to make himself completemaster of it, and to teach it to everybody else. From the timewhen his Pastorals appeared, heroic versification became matterof rule and compass; and, before long, all artists were on alevel. Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one happythought or expression were able to write reams of couplets which,as far as euphony was concerned, could not be distinguished fromthose of Pope himself, and which very clever writers of the reignof Charles the Second, Rochester, for example, or Marvel, orOldham, would have contemplated with admiring despair.

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. But Hoolecoming after Pope, had learned how to manufacture decasyllableverses, and poured them forth by thousands and tens of thousands,all as well turned, as smooth, and as like each other as theblocks which have passed through Mr. Brunel's mill in thedockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocksrudely hewn out by an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet.Take as a specimen his translation Of a celebrated passage in theAeneid:

"This child our parent earth, stirr'd up with spiteOf all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write,She was last sister of that giant raceThat sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace,And swifter far of wing, a monster vastAnd dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placedOn her huge corpse, so many waking eyesStick underneath, and, which may stranger riseIn the report, as many tongues she wears."

Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the neat fabricwhich Hoole's machine produces in unlimited abundance. We takethe first lines on which we open in his version of Tasso. Theyare neither better nor worse than the rest

O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led,By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread,No greater wonders east or west can boastThan yon small island on the pleasing coast.If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore,The current pass, and seek the further shore."

Ever since the time of Pope there had been a glut of lines ofthis sort; and we are now as little disposed to admire a man forbeing able to write them, as for being able to write his name.But in the days of William the Third such versification was rare;and a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a great poet,just as in the dark ages a person who could write his name passedfor a great clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh,and others whose only title to fame was that they said intolerable metre what might have been as well said in prose, orwhat was not worth saying at all, were honoured with marks ofdistinction which ought to be reserved for genius. With theseAddison must have ranked, if he had not earned true and lastingglory by performances which very little resembled his juvenilepoems.

Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from Addison acritical preface to the Georgics. In return for this service, andfor other services of the same kind, the veteran poet, in thepostscript to the translation of the Aeniad complimented hisyoung friend with great liberality, and indeed with moreliberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his ownperformance would not sustain a comparison with the version ofthe fourth Georgic, by "the most ingenious Mr. Addison ofOxford." "After his bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm isscarcely worth the hiving."

The time had now arrived when it was necessary for Addison tochoose a calling. Everything seemed to point his course towardsthe clerical profession. His habits were regular, his opinionsorthodox. His college had large ecclesiastical preferment in itsgift, and boasts that it has given at least one bishop to almostevery see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honourableplace in the Church, and had set his heart on seeing his son aclergyman. it is clear, from some expressions in the young man'srhymes, that his intention was to take orders. But CharlesMontague interfered. Montague had first brought himself intonotice by verses well-timed and not contemptibly written, butnever, we think, rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himselfand for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he couldnever have attained a rank as high as that of Dorset orRochester, and turned his mind to official and parliamentarybusiness. It is written that the ingenious person who undertookto instruct Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of flying,ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the air, andinstantly dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings,which were unable to support him through the sky, bore him upeffectually as soon as he was in the water. This is no bad typeof the fate of Charles Montague and of men like him. When heattempted to soar into the regions of poetical invention, healtogether failed; but, as soon as he had descended from thatethereal elevation into a lower and grosser element, his talentsinstantly raised him above the mass. He became a distinguishedfinancier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still retainedhis fondness for the pursuits of his early days; but he showedthat fondness not by wearying the public with his own feebleperformances, but by discovering and encouraging literaryexcellence in others. A crowd of wits and poets, who would easilyhave vanquished him as a competitor, revered him as a judge and apatron. In his plans for the encouragement of learning, he wascordially supported by the ablest and most virtuous of hiscolleagues, the Lord Chancellor Somers. Though both these greatstatesmen had a sincere love of letters, it was not solely from alove of letters that they were desirous to enlist youths of highintellectual qualifications in the public service. The Revolutionhad altered the whole system of government. Before that event thepress had been controlled by censors, and the Parliament had satonly two months in eight years. Now the press was free, and hadbegun to exercise unprecedented influence on the public mind.Parliament met annually and sat long. The chief power in theState had passed to the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture,it was natural that literary and oratorical talents should risein value. There was danger that a government which neglected suchtalents might be subverted by them. It was, therefore, a profoundand enlightened policy which led Montague and Somers to attachsuch talents to the Whig party, by the strongest ties both ofinterest and of gratitude.

It is remarkable that in a neighbouring country, we have recentlyseen similar effects follow from similar causes. The revolutionof July 1830 established representative government in France. Themen of letters instantly rose to the highest importance in theState. At the present moment most of the persons whom we see atthe head both of the Administration and of the Opposition havebeen professors, historians, journalists, poets. The influence ofthe literary class in England, during the generation whichfollowed the Revolution, was great, but by no means so great asit has lately been in France. For in England, the aristocracy ofintellect had to contend with a powerful and deeply-rootedaristocracy of a very different kind. France had no Somersets andShrewsburys to keep down her Addisons and Priors.

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just completed histwenty-seventh year, that the course of his life was finallydetermined. Both the great chiefs of the Ministry were kindlydisposed towards him. In political opinions he already was whathe continued to be through life, a firm, though a moderate Whig.He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his earlyEnglish lines to Somers, and had dedicated to Montague a Latinpoem, truly Virgilian, both in style and rhythm, on the peace ofRyswick. The wish of the young poet's great friends was, itshould seem, to employ him in the service of the Crown abroad.But an intimate knowledge of the French language was aqualification indispensable to a diplomatist; and thisqualification Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore,thought desirable that he should pass some time on the Continentin preparing himself for official employment. His own means werenot such as would enable him to travel: but a pension of threehundred pounds a year was procured for him by the interest of theLord Chancellor. It seems to have been apprehended that somedifficulty might be started by the rulers of Magdalen College.But the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote in the strongest termsto Hough. The State--such was the purport of Montague's letter--could not, at that time spare to the Church such a man asAddison. Too many high civil posts were already occupied byadventurers, who, destitute of every liberal art and sentiment,at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they pretendedto serve. It had become necessary to recruit for the publicservice from a very different class, from that class of whichAddison was the representative. The close of the Minister'sletter was remarkable. "I am called," he said, "an enemy of theChurch. But I will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr.Addison out of it."

This interference was successful; and, in the summer of 1699,Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and still retaining hisfellowship, quitted his beloved Oxford, and set out on histravels. He crossed from Dover to Calais, proceeded to Paris, andwas received there with great kindness and politeness by akinsman of his friend Montague, Charles Earl of Manchester, whohad just been appointed Ambassador to the Court of France. TheCountess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as gracious as herlord; for Addison long retained an agreeable recollection of theimpression which she at this time made on him, and in some livelylines written on the glasses of the Kit-Cat Club, described theenvy which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of England,had excited among the painted beauties of Versailles.

Lewis the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the vices of hisyouth by a devotion which had no root in reason, and bore nofruit of charity. The servile literature of France had changedits character to suit the changed character of the prince. Nobook appeared that had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who wasjust dead, had passed the close of his life in writing sacreddramas; and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries inPlato. Addison described this state of things in a short butlively and graceful letter to Montague. Another letter, writtenabout the same time to the Lord Chancellor, conveyed thestrongest assurances of gratitude and attachment. "The onlyreturn I can make to your Lordship," said Addison, "will be toapply myself entirely to my business." With this view he quittedParis and repaired to Blois, a place where it was supposed thatthe French language was spoken in its highest purity, and wherenot a single Englishman could be found. Here he passed somemonths pleasantly and profitably. Of his way of life at Blois,one of his associates, an Abbe named Philippeaux, gave an accountto Joseph Spence. If this account is to be trusted, Addisonstudied much, mused much, talked little, had fits of absence, andeither had no love affairs, or was too discreet to confide themto the Abbe. A man who, even when surrounded by fellow-countrymenand fellow-students, had always been remarkably shy and silent,was not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue, and amongforeign companions. But it is clear from Addison's letters, someof which were long after published in the Guardian, that, whilehe appeared to be absorbed in his own meditations, he was reallyobserving French society with that keen and sly, yet not ill-natured side glance, which was peculiarly his own.

From Blois he returned to Paris; and, having now mastered theFrench language, found great pleasure in the society of Frenchphilosophers and poets. He gave an account, in a letter to BishopHough, of two highly interesting conversations, one withMalbranche, the other with Boileau. Malbranche expressed greatpartiality for the English, and extolled the genius of Newton,but shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed sounjust as to call the author of the Leviathan a poor, sillycreature. Addison's modesty restrained him from fully relating,in his letter, the circumstances of his introduction to Boileau.Boileau, having survived the friends and rivals of his youth,old, deaf, and melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom wenteither to Court or to the Academy, and was almost inaccessible tostrangers. Of the English and of English literature he knewnothing. He had hardly heard the name of Dryden. Some of ourcountrymen, in the warmth of their patriotism, have asserted thatthis ignorance must have been affected. We own that we see noground for such a supposition. English literature was to theFrench of the age of Lewis the Fourteenth what German literaturewas to our own grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, of theaccomplished men who, sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine inLeicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at Streatham. with Mrs.Thrale, had the slightest notion that Wieland was one of thefirst wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dispute, the firstcritic in Europe. Boileau knew just as little about the ParadiseLost, and about Absalom and Achitophel; but he had read Addison'sLatin poems, and admired them greatly. They had given him, hesaid, quite a new notion of the state of learning and taste amongthe English. Johnson will have it that these praises wereinsincere. "Nothing," says he, "is better known of Boileau thanthat he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of modern Latin;and therefore his profession of regard was probably the effect ofhis civility rather than approbation." Now, nothing is betterknown of Boileau than that he was singularly sparing ofcompliments. We do not remember that either friendship or fearever induced him to bestow praise on any composition which he didnot approve. On literary questions his caustic, disdainful, andself-confident spirit rebelled against that authority to whicheverything else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tellLewis the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his MajestyknewNothing about poetry, and admired verses which were detestable.What was there in Addison's position that could induce thesatirist,Whose stern and fastidious temper had been the dread of twogenerations, to turn sycophant for the first and last time? Norwas Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious orpeevish. He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first orderwould ever be written in a dead language. And did he think amiss?Has not the experience of centuries confirmed his opinion?Boileau also thought it probable that, in the best modern Latin,a writer of the Augustan age would have detected ludicrousimproprieties. And who can think otherwise? What modern scholarcan honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in thestyle of Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Livy,Pollio, whose taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber,detected the inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any modern scholarunderstood Latin better than Frederic the Great understoodFrench? Yet is it not notorious that Frederic the Great, afterreading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but French, duringmore than half a century, after unlearning his mother tongue inorder to learn French, after living familiarly during many yearswith French associates, could not, to the last, compose inFrench, without imminent risk of committing some mistake whichwould have moved a smile in the literary circles of Paris? Do webelieve that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr.Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English? And are there notin the Dissertation on India, the last of Dr. Robertson's works,in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a London apprenticewould laugh? But does it follow, because we think thus, that wecan find nothing to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or inthe playful elegiacs of Vincent Bourne? Surely not. Nor wasBoileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be incapable ofappreciating good modern Latin. In the very letter to whichJohnson alludes, Boileau says--"Ne croyez pas pourtant que jeveuille par la blamer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoyesd'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai trouves fort beaux,et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non pas d'Horace et deVirgile." Several poems, in modern Latin, have beenpraised by Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit topraise anything. He says, for example, of the Pere Fraguier'sepigrams, that Catullus seems to have come to life again. But thebest proof that Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contemptfor modern Latin verses which has been imputed to him, is, thathe wrote and published Latin verses in several metres. Indeed ithappens, curiously enough, that the most severe censure everpronounced by him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latinhexameters. We allude to the fragment which begins

For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which Boileaubestowed on the Machinae Gesticulantes and the GeranoPygmaomachia, was sincere. He certainly opened himself to Addisonwith a freedom which was a sure indication of esteem. Literaturewas the chief subject of conversation. The old man talked on hisfavourite theme much and well, indeed, as his young hearerthought, incomparably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of thequalities of a great critic. He wanted imagination; but he hadstrong sense. His literary code was formed on narrow principles;but in applying it, he showed great judgment and penetration. Inmere style, abstracted from the ideas of which style is the garb,his taste was excellent. He was well acquainted with the greatGreek writers; and, though unable fully to appreciate theircreative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner,and had learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It iseasy we think, to discover, in the Spectator, and the Guardian:traces of the influence, in part salutary and in part pernicious,which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of Addison.

While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which made thatcapital a disagreeable residence for an Englishman and a Whig.Charles, second of the name, King of Spain, died; and bequeathedhis dominions to Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of theDauphin. The King of France, in direct violation of hisengagements both with Great Britain and with the States-General,accepted the bequest on behalf of his grandson. The House ofBourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. England had beenoutwitted, and found herself in a situation at once degrading andperilous. The people of France, not presaging the calamities bywhich they were destined to expiate the perfidy of theirsovereign, went mad with pride and delight. Every man looked asif a great estate had just been left him. "The Frenchconversation," said Addison, "begins to grow insupportable; thatwhich was before the vainest nation in the world is now worsethan ever." Sick of the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, andprobably foreseeing that the peace between France and Englandcould not be of long duration, he set off for Italy.

In December 1701 [It is strange that Addison should, in the firstline of his travels, have misdated his departure from Marseillesby a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of thepen, which throws the whole narrative into inextricableconfusion, should have been repeated in a succession of editions,and never detected by Tickell or by Hurd.] he embarked atMarseilles. As he glided along the Ligurian coast, he wasdelighted by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which retainedtheir verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, heencountered one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. Thecaptain of the ship gave up all for lost, and confessed himselfto a capuchin who happened to be on board. The English heretic,in the meantime, fortified himself against the terrors of deathwith devotions of a very different kind. How strong an impressionthis perilous voyage made on him, appears from the ode, "How arethy servants blest, 0 Lord!" which was long after published inthe Spectator. After some days of discomfort and danger, Addisonwas glad to land at Savona, and to make his way, over mountainswhere no road had yet been hewn out by art, to the city of Genoa.

At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles whosenames were inscribed on her Book of Gold, Addison made a shortstay. He admired the narrow streets overhung by long lines oftowering palaces, the walls rich with frescoes, the gorgeoustemple of the Annunciation, and the tapestries whereon wererecorded the long glories of the House of Doria. Thence hehastened to Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic magnificenceof the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed LakeBenacus while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging asthey raged when Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then thegayest spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, thegayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, dances, andserenades. Here he was at once diverted and provoked, by theabsurd dramatic pieces which then disgraced the Italian stage. Toone of those pieces, however, he was indebted for a valuablehint. He was present when a ridiculous play on the death of Catowas performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter ofScipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. The rejectedlover determined to destroy himself. He appeared seated in hislibrary, a dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before him;and, in this position, he pronounced a soliloquy before he struckthe blow. We are surprised that so remarkable a circumstance asthis should have escaped the notice of all Addison's biographers.There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest doubt that this scene,in spite of its absurdities and anachronisms, struck thetraveller's imagination, and suggested to him the thought ofbringing Cato on the English stage. It is well known that aboutthis time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the firstfour acts before he returned to England,

On his way from Venice to Rome, he was drawn some miles out ofthe beaten road, by a wish to see the smallest independent statein Europe. On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italianspring was now far advanced, was perched the little fortress ofSan Marino. The roads which led to the secluded town were so badthat few travellers had ever visited it, and none had everpublished an account of it. Addison could not suppress a good-natured smile at the simple manners and institutions of thissingular community. But he observed, with the exultation of aWhig, that the rude mountain tract which formed the territory ofthe republic swarmed with an honest, healthy, and contentedpeasantry, while the rich plain which surrounded the metropolisof civil and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate thanthe uncleared wilds of America.

At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long enough tocatch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pantheon. His haste isthe more extraordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand.He has given no hint which can enable us to pronounce why hechose to fly from a spectacle which every year allures fromdistant regions persons of far less taste and sensibility thanhis. Possibly, travelling, as he did, at the charge of agovernment distinguished by its enmity to the Church of Rome, hemay have thought that it would be imprudent in him to assist atthe most magnificent rite of that Church. Many eyes would be uponhim; and he might find it difficult to behave in such a manner asto give offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to thoseamong whom he resided. Whatever his motives may have been, heturned his back on the most august and affecting ceremony whichis known among men, and posted along the Appian Way to Naples.

Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, its chiefattractions. The lovely bay and the awful mountain were indeedthere. But a farmhouse stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, androws of vines grew over the streets of Pompeii. The temples ofPaestum had not indeed been hidden from the eye of man by anygreat convulsion of nature; but, strange to say, their existencewas a secret even to artists and antiquaries. Though situatedwithin a few hours' journey of a great capital, where Salvatorhad not long before painted, and where Vico was then lecturing,those noble remains were as little known to Europe as the ruinedcities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was to be seenat Naples, Addison saw. He climbed Vesuvius, explored the tunnelof Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond trees ofCapreae. But neither the wonders of nature, nor those of art,could so occupy his attention as to prevent him from noticing,though cursorily, the abuses of the Government and the misery ofthe people. The great kingdom which had just descended to Philipthe Fifth, was in a state of paralytic dotage. Even Castile andAragon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared with the Italiandependencies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might becalled prosperous. It is clear that all the observations whichAddison made in Italy tended to confirm him in the politicalopinions which he had adopted at home. To the last, he alwaysspoke of foreign travel as the best cure for Jacobitism. In hisFreeholder, the Tory fox-hunter asks what travelling is good for,except to teach a man to jabber French, and to talk againstpassive obedience.

From Naples, Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coastwhich his favourite Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed theheadland where the oar and trumpet were placed by the Trojanadventurers on the tomb of Misenus, and anchored at night underthe shelter of the fabled promontory of Circe. The voyage endedin the Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still turbidwith yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of Aeneas. From theruined port of Ostia, the stranger hurried to Rome; and at Romehe remained during those hot and sickly months when, even in theAugustan age, all who could make their escape fled from mad dogsand from streets black with funerals, to gather the first figs ofthe season in the country. It is probable that, when he, longafter, poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Providencewhich had enabled him to breathe unhurt in tainted air, he wasthinking of the August and September which he passed at Rome.

It was not till the latter end of October that he tore himselfaway from the masterpieces of ancient and modern art which arecollected in the city so long the mistress of the world. He thenjourneyed northward, passed through Sienna, and for a momentforgot his prejudices in favour of classic architecture as helooked on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent somedays with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the pleasuresof ambition, and impatient of its pains, fearing both parties,and loving neither, had determined to hide in an Italian retreattalents and accomplishments which, if they had been united withfixed principles and civil courage, might have made him theforemost man of his age. These days we are told, passedpleasantly; and we can easily believe it. For Addison was adelightful companion when he was at his ease; and the Duke,though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, had the invaluableart of putting at case all who came near him.

Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to thesculptures in the Museum, which he preferred even to those of theVatican. He then pursued his journey through a country in whichthe ravages of the last war were still discernible, and in whichall men were looking forward with dread to a still fiercerconflict. Eugene had already descended from the Rhaetian Alps, todispute with Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. The faithlessruler of Savoy was still reckoned among the allies of Lewis.England had not yet actually declared war against France: butManchester had left Paris; and the negotiations which producedthe Grand Alliance against the House of Bourbon were in progress.Under such circumstances, it was desirable for an Englishtraveller to reach neutral ground without delay. Addison resolvedto cross Mont Cenis. It was December; and the road was verydifferent from that which now reminds the stranger of the powerand genius of Napoleon. The winter, however, was mild; and thepassage was, for those times, easy. To this journey Addisonalluded when, in the ode which we have already quoted, he saidthat for him the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary Alpinehills.

It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he composed his"Epistle" to his friend Montague, now Lord Halifax. That Epistle,once widely renowned, is now known only to curious readers, andwill hardly be considered by those to whom it is known as in anyperceptible degree heightening Addison's fame. It is, however,decidedly superior to any English composition which he hadpreviously published. Nay, we think it quite as good as any poemin heroic metre which appeared during the interval between thedeath of Dryden and the publication of the Essay on Criticism. Itcontains passages as good as the second-rate passages of Pope,and would have added to the reputation of Parnell or Prior.

But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the Epistle,it undoubtedly does honour to the principles and spirit of theauthor. Halifax had now nothing to give. He had fallen frompower, had been held up to obloquy, had been impeached by theHouse of Commons, and, though his Peers had dismissed theimpeachment, had, as it seemed, little chance of ever againfilling high office. The Epistle, written, at such a time, is oneamong many proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice ormeanness in the suavity and moderation which distinguishedAddison from all the other public men of those stormy times.

At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change ofMinistry had taken place in England, and that the Earl ofManchester had become Secretary of State. Manchester exertedhimself to serve his young friend. It was thought advisable thatan English agent should be near the person of Eugene in Italy;and Addison, whose diplomatic education was now finished, was theman selected. He was preparing to enter on his honourablefunctions, when all his prospects were for a time darkened by thedeath of William the Third.

Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, political, andreligious, to the Whig party. That aversion appeared in the firstmeasure of her reign. Manchester was deprived of the seals, afterhe had held them only a few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax wassworn of the Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his threepatrons. His hopes of employment in the public service were at anend; his pension was stopped; and it was necessary for him tosupport himself by his own exertions. He became tutor to a youngEnglish traveller, and appears to have rambled with his pupilover great part of Switzerland and Germany. At this time he wrotehis pleasing Treatise on Medals. It was not published till afterhis death; but several distinguished scholars saw the manuscript,and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and to thelearning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations.

From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, where he learned themelancholy news of his father's death. After passing some monthsin the United Provinces, he returned about the close of the year1703 to England. He was there cordially received by his friends,and introduced by them into the Kit Cat Club, a society in whichwere collected all the various talents and accomplishments whichthen gave lustre to the Whig party.

Addison was, during some months after his return from theContinent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But it wassoon in the power of his noble patrons to serve him effectually.A political change, silent and gradual, but of the highestimportance, was in daily progress. The accession of Anne had beenhailed by the Tories with transports of joy and hope; and for atime it seemed that the Whigs had fallen, never to rise again.The throne was surrounded by men supposed to be attached to theprerogative and to the Church; and among these none stood so highin the favour of the Sovereign as the Lord Treasurer Godolphinand the Captain-General Marlborough.

The country gentlemen and country clergymen had fully expectedthat the policy of these Ministers would be directly opposed tothat which had been almost constantly followed by William; thatthe landed interest would be favoured at the expense of trade;that no addition would be made to the funded debt; that theprivileges conceded to Dissenters by the late King would becurtailed, if not withdrawn; that the war with France, if theremust be such a war, would, on our part, be almost entirely naval;and that the Government would avoid close connections withforeign powers, and, above all, with Holland.

But the country gentlemen and country clergymen were fated to bedeceived, not for the last time. The prejudices and passionswhich raged without control in vicarages, in cathedral closes,and in the manor-houses of fox-hunting squires, were not sharedby the chiefs of the Ministry. Those statesmen saw that it wasboth for the public interest, and for their own interest, toadopt a Whig policy, at least as respected the alliances of thecountry and the conduct of the war. But, if the foreign policy ofthe Whigs were adopted, it was impossible to abstain fromadopting also their financial policy. The natural consequencesfollowed. The rigid Tories were alienated from the Government.The votes of the Whigs became necessary to it. The votes of theWhigs could be secured only by further concessions; and furtherconcessions the Queen was induced to make.

At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties bore aclose analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 1826, as in1704, there was a Tory Ministry divided into two hostilesections. The position of Mr. Canning and his friends in 1826corresponded to that which Marlborough and Godolphin occupied in1704. Nottingham and Jersey were, in 1704, what Lord Eldon andLord Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were in asituation resembling that in which the Whigs of 1826 stood. In1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cowper, were not in office.There was no avowed coalition between them and the moderateTories. It is probable that no direct communication tending tosuch a coalition had yet taken place; yet all men saw that such acoalition was inevitable, nay, that it was already half formed.Such, or nearly such, was the state of things when tidingsarrived of the great battle fought at Blenheim on the 13thAugust, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed with transports ofjoy and pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be rememberedby them against the Commander whose genius had, in one day,changed the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, humbledthe House of Bourbon, and secured the Act of Settlement againstforeign hostility. The feeling of the Tories was very different.They could not indeed, without imprudence, openly express regretat an event so glorious to their country; but theircongratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep disgustto the victorious general and his friends.

Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time he could sparefrom business he was in the habit of spending at Newmarket or atthe card-table. But he was not absolutely indifferent to poetry;and he was too intelligent an observer not to perceive thatliterature was a formidable engine of political warfare, and thatthe great Whig leaders had strengthened their party, and raisedtheir character, by extending a liberal and judicious patronageto good writers. He was mortified, and not without reason, by theexceeding badness of the poems which appeared in honour of thebattle of Blenheim. One of these poems has been rescued fromoblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three lines:

"Think of two thousand gentlemen at least,And each man mounted on his capering beastInto the Danube they were pushed by shoals."

Where to procure better verses the Treasurer did not know. Heunderstood how to negotiate a loan, or remit a subsidy: he wasalso well versed in the history of running horses and fightingcocks; but his acquaintance among the poets was verysmall. He consulted Halifax; but Halifax affected to decline theoffice of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, when he hadpower, to encourage men whose abilities and acquirements might dohonour to their country. Those times were over. Other maxims hadprevailed. Merit was suffered to pine in obscurity; and thepublic money was squandered on the undeserving. "I do know," headded, "a gentleman who would celebrate the battle in a mannerworthy of the subject; but I will not name him." Godolphin, whowas expert at the soft answer which turneth away wrath, and whowas under the necessity of paying court to the Whigs, gentlyreplied that there was too much ground for Halifax's complaints,but that what was amiss should in time be rectified, and that inthe meantime the services of a man such as Halifax had describedshould be liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned Addison,but, mindful of the dignity as well as of the pecuniary interestof his friend, insisted that the Minister should apply in themost courteous manner to Addison himself; and this Godolphinpromised to do.

Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of stairs, over asmall shop in the Haymarket. In this humble lodging he wassurprised, on the morning which followed the conversation betweenGodolphin and Halifax, by a visit from no less a person than theRight Honourable Henry Boyle, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,and afterwards Lord Carleton. This highborn Minister had beensent by the Lord Treasurer as ambassador to the needy poet.Addison readily undertook the proposed task, a task which, to sogood a Whig, was probably a pleasure. When the poem was littlemore than half finished, he showed it to Godolphin, who wasdelighted with it, and particularly with the famous similitude ofthe Angel. Addison was instantly appointed to a Commissionershipworth about two hundred pounds a year, and was assured that thisappointment was only an earnest of greater favours.

The Campaign came forth, and was as much admired by the public asby the Minister. It pleases us less on the whole than the"Epistle to Halifax." Yet it undoubtedly ranks high among thepoems which appeared during the interval between the death ofDryden and the dawn of Pope's genius. The chief merit of theCampaign, we think, is that which was noticed by Johnson, themanly and rational rejection of fiction. The first great poetwhose works have come down to us sang of war long before warbecame a science or a trade. If, in his time, there was enmitybetween two little Greek towns, each poured forth its crowd ofcitizens, ignorant of discipline, and armed with implements oflabour rudely turned into weapons. On each side appearedconspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them toprocure good armour, horses, and chariots, and whose leisure hadenabled them to practise military exercises. One such chief, ifhe were a man of great strength, agility, and courage, wouldprobably be more formidable than twenty common men; and the forceand dexterity with which he flung his spear might have noinconsiderable share in deciding the event of the day. Such wereprobably the battles with which Homer was familiar. But Homerrelated the actions of men of a former generation, of men whosprang from the Gods, and communed with the Gods face to face, ofmen, one of whom could with ease hurl rocks which two sturdyhinds of a later period would be unable even to lift. Hetherefore naturally represented their martial exploits asresembling in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, those of thestoutest and most expert combatants of his own age. Achilles,clad in celestial armour, drawn by celestial coursers, graspingthe spear which none but himself could raise, driving all Troyand Lycia before him, and choking Scamander with dead, was only amagnificent exaggeration of the real hero, who, strong, fearless,accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded by a shield and helmetof the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by horses ofThessalian breed, struck down with his own right arm foe afterfoe. In all rude societies similar notions are found. There areat this day countries where the Lifeguardsman Shaw would beconsidered as a much greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington.Buonaparte loved to describe the astonishment with which theMamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad Bey,distinguished above all his fellows by his bodily strength, andby the skill with which he managed his horse and his sabre, couldnot believe that a man who was scarcely five feet high, and rodelike a butcher, could be the greatest soldier in Europe.

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much truth as poetryrequires. But truth was altogether wanting to the performances ofthose who, writing about battles which had scarcely anything incommon with the battles of his times, servilely imitated hismanner. The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, ispositively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse thevicissitudes of a great struggle between generals of the firstorder; and his narrative is made up of the hideous wounds whichthese generals inflicted with their own hands. Asdrubal flingsa spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero; but Nerosends his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris andButes and Maris and Arses, and the long-haired Adherbes, andthe gigantic Thylis, and Sapharus and Monaesus, and thetrumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through the groinwith a stake, and breaks the backbone of Telesinus with a hugestone. This detestable fashion was copied in modern times, andcontinued to prevail down to the age of Addison. Severalversifiers had described William turning thousands to flight byhis single prowess, and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay,so estimable a writer as John Philips, the author of the SplendidShilling, represented Marlborough as having won the battle ofBlenheim merely by strength of muscle and skill in fence. Thefollowing lines may serve as an example:-

"Churchill viewing whereThe violence of Tallard most prevailed,Came to oppose his slaughtering arm.With speed precipitate he rode, urging his wayO'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steedsRolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood,Attends his furious course. Around his headThe glowing balls play innocent, while heWith dire impetuous sway deals fatal blowsAmong the flying Gauls. In Gallic bloodHe dyes his reeking sword, and strews the groundWith headless ranks. What can they do? Or howWithstand his wide-destroying sword?"

Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from thisridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise for the qualitieswhich made Marlborough truly great, energy, sagacity, militaryscience. But, above all, the poet extolled the firmness of thatmind which, in the midst of confusion, uproar, and slaughter,examined and disposed everything with the serene wisdom of ahigher intelligence.

Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison ofMarlborough to an angel guiding the whirlwind. We will notdispute the general justice of Johnson's remarks on this passage.But we must point out one circumstance which appears to haveescaped all the critics. The extraordinary effect which thissimile produced when it first appeared, and which to thefollowing generation seemed inexplicable, is doubtless to bechiefly attributed to a line which most readers now regard as afeeble parenthesis:--

"Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia pass'd."

Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The greattempest of November 1703, the only tempest which in our latitudehas equalled the rage of a tropical hurricane, had left adreadful recollection in the minds of all men. No other tempestwas ever in this country the occasion of a parliamentary addressor of a public fast. Whole fleets had been cast away. Largemansions had been blown down. One Prelate had been buried beneaththe ruins of his palace. London and Bristol had presented theappearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds of families were stillin mourning. The prostrate trunks of large trees, and the ruinsof houses, still attested, in all the southern counties, the furyof the blast. The popularity which the simile of the angelenjoyed among Addison's contemporaries, has always seemed to usto be a remarkable instance of the advantage which, in rhetoricand poetry, the particular has over the general.

Soon after the Campaign, was published Addison's Narrative of hisTravels in Italy. The first effect produced by this Narrative wasdisappointment. The crowd of readers who expected politics andscandal, speculations on the projects of Victor Amadeus, andanecdotes about the jollities of convents and the amours ofcardinals and nuns, were confounded by finding that the writer'smind was much more occupied by the war between the Trojans andRutulians than by the war between France and Austria; and that heseemed to have heard no scandal of later date than thegallantries of the Empress Faustina. In time, however, thejudgment of the many was overruled by that of the few; and,before the book was reprinted, it was so eagerly sought that itsold for five times the original price. It is still read withpleasure: the style is pure and flowing; the classical quotationsand allusions are numerous and happy; and we are now and thencharmed by that singularly humane and delicate humour in whichAddison excelled all men. Yet this agreeable work, even whenconsidered merely as the history of a literary tour, may justlybe censured on account of its faults of omission. We have alreadysaid that, though rich in extracts from the Latin poets, itcontains scarcely any references to the Latin orators andhistorians. We must add, that it contains little, or rather noinformation, respecting the history and literature of modernItaly. To the best of our remembrance, Addison does not mentionDante, Petrarch Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo de'Medici, orMachiavelli. He coldly tells us, that at Ferrara he saw the tombof Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard the gondoliers singverses of Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less thanfor Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris. The gentle flow ofthe Ticin brings a line of Silius to his mind. The sulphurousstream of Albula suggests to him several passages of Martial. Buthe has not a word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce;he crosses the wood of Ravenna without recollecting the SpectreHuntsman, and wanders up and down Rimini without one thought ofFrancesca. At Paris, he had eagerly sought an introduction toBoileau; but he seems not to have been at all aware that atFlorence he was in the vicinity of a poet with whom Boileau couldnot sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of moderntimes, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more remarkable, becauseFilicaja was the favourite poet of the accomplished Somers, underwhose protection Addison travelled, and to whom the account ofthe Travels is dedicated. The truth is, that Addison knew little,and cared less, about the literature of modern Italy. Hisfavourite models were Latin, his favourite critics were French.Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read seemed to him monstrous,and the other half tawdry.

His Travels were followed by the lively opera of Rosamond. Thispiece was ill set to music, and therefore failed on the stage,but it completely succeeded in print, and is indeed excellent inits kind. The smoothness with which the verses glide, and theelasticity with which they bound, is, to our ears at least, verypleasing. We are inclined to think that if Addison had leftheroic couplets to Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, and hademployed himself in writing airy and spirited songs, hisreputation as a poet would have stood far higher than it nowdoes. Some years after his death, Rosamond was set to new musicby Doctor Arne; and was performed with complete success. Severalpassages long retained their popularity, and were daily sung,during the latter part of George the Second's reign, at all theharpsichords in England.

While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and theprospects of his party, were constantly becoming brighter andbrighter. In the spring of 1705, the Ministers were freed fromthe restraint imposed by a House of Commons in which Tories ofthe most perverse class had the ascendency. The elections werefavourable to the Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly andgradually formed was now openly avowed. The Great Seal was givento Cowper. Somers and Halifax were sworn of the Council. Halifaxwas sent in the following year to carry the decorations of theOrder of the Garter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and wasaccompanied on this honourable mission by Addison, who had justbeen made Under-Secretary of State. The Secretary of State underwhom Addison first served was Sir Charles Hedges, a Tory. ButHedges was soon dismissed, to make room for the most vehement ofWhigs, Charles, Earl of Sunderland. In every department of theState, indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give place totheir opponents. At the close of 1707, the Tories who stillremained in office strove to rally, with Harley at their head.But the attempt, though favoured by the Queen, who had alwaysbeen a Tory at heart, and who had now quarrelled with the Duchessof Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. TheCaptain-General was at the height of popularity and glory. TheLow Church party had a majority in Parliament. The countrysquires and rectors, though occasionally uttering a savage growl,were for the most part in a state of torpor, which lasted tillthey were roused into activity, and indeed into madness, by theprosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents werecompelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was complete. Atthe general election of 1708, their strength in the House ofCommons became irresistible; and, before the end of that year,Somers was made Lord President of the Council, and Wharton Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland.

Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons which waselected in 1708. But the House of Commons was not the field forhim. The bashfulness of his nature made his wit and eloquenceuseless in debate. He once rose, but could not overcome hisdiffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody can think itstrange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many,probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as aspeaker should have had no unfavourable effect on his success asa politician. In our time, a man of high rank and great fortunemight, though speaking very little and very ill, hold aconsiderable post. But it would now be inconceivable that a mereadventurer, a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen,should in a few years become successively Under-Secretary ofState, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and Secretary of State,without some oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth, andwith little property, rose to a post which Dukes the heads of thegreat Houses of Talbot, Russell, and Bentinck, have thought it anhonour to fill. Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to apost, the highest that Chatham or Fox ever reached. And this hedid before he had been nine years in Parliament. We must look forthe explanation of this seeming miracle to the peculiarcircumstances in which that generation was placed. During theinterval which elapsed between the time when the Censorship ofthe Press ceased, and the time when parliamentary proceedingsbegan to be freely reported, literary talents were, to a publicman, of much more importance, and oratorical talents of much lessimportance, than in our time. At present, the best way of givingrapid and wide publicity to a fact or an argument is to introducethat fact or argument into a speech made in Parliament. If apolitical tract were to appear superior to the Conduct of theAllies, or to the best numbers of the Freeholder, the circulationof such a tract would be languid indeed when compared with thecirculation of every remarkable word uttered in the deliberationsof the legislature. A speech made in the House of Commons at fourin the morning is on thirty thousand tables before ten. A speechmade on the Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes inAntrim and Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of theshorthand writer, has to a great extent superseded thepamphleteer. It was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speechcould then produce no effect except on those who heard it. It wasonly by means of the press that the opinion of the public withoutdoors could be influenced: and the opinion of the public withoutdoors could not but be of the highest importance in a countrygoverned by parliaments, and indeed at that time governed bytriennial parliaments. The pen was therefore a more formidablepolitical engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contendedonly in Parliament. But Walpole and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox ofan earlier period, had not done half of what was necessary, whenthey sat down amidst the acclamations of the House of Commons.They had still to plead their cause before the country, and thisthey could do only by means of the press. Their works are nowforgotten. But it is certain that there were in Grub Street fewmore assiduous scribblers of Thoughts, Letters, Answers, Remarks,than these two great chiefs of parties. Pulteney, when leader ofthe Opposition, and possessed of thirty thousand a year, editedthe Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of literary habits, wasthe author of at least ten pamphlets, and retouched and correctedmany more. These facts sufficiently show of how great importanceliterary assistance then was to the contending parties. St. Johnwas, certainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker; Cowperwas probably the best Whig speaker. But it may well be doubtedwhether St. John did so much for the Tories as Swift, and whetherCowper did so much for the Whigs as Addison. When these thingsare duly considered, it will not be thought strange that Addisonshould have climbed higher in the State than any other Englishmanhas ever, by means merely of literary talents, been able toclimb. Swift would, in all probability, have climbed as high, ifhe had not been encumbered by his cassock and his puddingsleeves. As far as the homage of the great went, Swift had asmuch of it as if he had been Lord Treasurer.

To the influence which Addison derived from his literary talentswas added all the influence which arises from character. Theworld, always ready to think the worst of needy politicaladventurers, was forced to make one exception. Restlessness,violence, audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices ordinarilyattributed to that class of men. But faction itself could notdeny that Addison had, through all changes of fortune, beenstrictly faithful to his early opinions, and to his earlyfriends; that his integrity was without stain; that his wholedeportment indicated a fine sense of the becoming; that, in theutmost heat of controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard fortruth, humanity, and social decorum; that no outrage could everprovoke him to retaliation unworthy of a Christian and agentleman; and that his only faults were a too sensitivedelicacy, and a modesty which amounted to bashfulness.

He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of his time; andmuch of his popularity he owed, we believe, to that very timiditywhich his friends lamented. That timidity often prevented himfrom exhibiting his talents to the best advantage. But itpropitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy which would otherwisehave been excited by fame so splendid and by so rapid anelevation. No man is so great a favourite with the Public as hewho is at once an object of admiration, of respect and of pity;and such were the feelings which Addison inspired. Those whoenjoyed the privilege of hearing his familiar conversation,declared with one voice that it was superior even to hiswritings. The brilliant Mary Montague said, that she had knownall the wits, and that Addison was the best company in the world.The malignant Pope was forced to own, that there was a charm inAddison's talk, which could be found nowhere else. Swift, whenburning with animosity against the Whigs, could not but confessto Stella that, after all, he had never known any associate soagreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of livelyconversation, said that the conversation of Addison was at oncethe most polite, and the most mirthful, that could be imagined;that it was Terence and Catullus in one, heightened by anexquisite something which was neither Terence nor Catullus, butAddison alone. Young, an excellent judge of serious conversation,said, that when Addison was at his ease, he went on in a noblestrain of thought and language, so as to chain the attention ofevery hearer. Nor were Addison's great colloquial powers moreadmirable than the courtesy and softness of heart which appearedin his conversation. At the same time, it would be too much tosay that he was wholly devoid of the malice which is, perhaps,inseparable from a keen sense of the ludicrous. He had one habitwhich both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we hardly knowhow to blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunceright were ill received, he changed his tone, "assented withcivil leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeperinto absurdity. That such was his practice, we should, we think,have guessed from his works. The Tatler's criticisms on Mr.Softly's sonnet and the Spectator's dialogue with the politicianwho is so zealous for the honour of Lady Q--p--t--s, areexcellentspecimens of this innocent mischief.

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his rare giftswere not exhibited to crowds or to strangers. As soon as heentered a large company, as soon as he saw an unknown face, hislips were sealed and his manners became constrained. None who methim only in great assemblies would have been able to believe thathe was the same man who had often kept a few friends listeningand laughing round a table, from the time when the play ended,till the clock of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Yet,even at such a table, he was not seen to the best advantage. Toenjoy his conversation in the highest perfection, it wasnecessary to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his ownphrase, think aloud. "There is no such thing," he used to say,"as real conversation, but between two persons."

This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful norunamiable, led Addison into the two most serious faults which canwith justice be imputed to him. He found that wine broke thespell which lay on his fine intellect, and was therefore tooeasily seduced into convivial excess. Such excess was in that ageregarded, even by grave men, as the most venial of allpeccadilloes, and was so far from being a mark of ill-breeding,that it was almost essential to the character of a finegentleman. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground; andalmost all the biographers of Addison have said something aboutthis failing. Of any other statesman or writer of Queen Anne'sreign, we should no more think of saying that he sometimes tooktoo much wine, than that he wore a long wig and a sword.

To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature, we must ascribeanother fault which generally arises from a very different cause.He became a little too fond of seeing himself surrounded by asmall circle of admirers, to whom he was as a King or rather as aGod. All these men were far inferior to him in ability, and someof them had very serious faults. Nor did those faults escape hisobservation; for, if ever there was an eye which saw through andthrough men, it was the eye of Addison. But, with the keenestobservation, and the finest sense of the ridiculous, he had alarge charity. The feeling with which he looked on most of hishumble companions was one of benevolence, slightly tinctured withcontempt. He was at perfect case in their company; he wasgrateful for their devoted attachment; and he loaded them withbenefits. Their veneration for him appears to have exceeded thatwith which Johnson was regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd.It was not in the power of adulation to turn such a head, ordeprave such a heart, as Addison's. But it must in candour beadmitted that he contracted some of the faults which can scarcelybe avoided by any person who is so unfortunate as to be theoracle of a small literary coterie.

One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a youngTemplar of some literature, and a distant relation of Addison.There was at this time no stain on the character of Budgell, andit is not improbable that his career would have been prosperousand honourable, if the life of his cousin had been prolonged. Butwhen the master was laid in the grave, the disciple broke loosefrom all restraint, descended rapidly from one degree of vice andmisery to another, ruined his fortune by follies, attempted torepair it by crimes, and at length closed a wicked and unhappylife by self-murder. Yet, to the last, the wretched man, gambler,lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained his affection andveneration for Addison, and recorded those feelings in the lastlines which he traced before he hid himself from infamy underLondon Bridge.

Another of Addison's favourite companions was Ambrose Phillips, agood Whig and a middling poet, who had the honour of bringinginto fashion a species of composition which has been called,after his name, Namby Pamby. But the most remarkable members ofthe little senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, wereRichard Steele and Thomas Tickell.

Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had been togetherat the Charterhouse and at Oxford; but circumstances had then,for a time, separated them widely. Steele had left collegewithout taking a degree, had been disinherited by a richrelation, had led a vagrant life, had served in the army, hadtried to find the philosopher's stone, and had written areligious treatise and several comedies. He was one of thosepeople whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. Histemper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits lively, hispassions strong, and his principles weak. His life was spent insinning and repenting; in inculcating what was right, and doingwhat was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety and honour;in practice, he was much of the rake and a little of theswindler. He was, however, so good-natured that it was not easyto be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid moralistsfelt more inclined to pity than to blame him, when he dicedhimself into a spunging-house or drank himself into a fever.Addison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn,tried, with little success, to keep him out of scrapes,introduced him to the great, procured a good place for him,corrected his plays, and, though by no means rich, lent him largesums of money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated inAugust 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. Thesepecuniary transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. It issaid that, on one occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty,provoked Addison to repay himself by the help of a bailiff. Wecannot join with Miss Aikin in rejecting this story. Johnsonheard it from Savage, who heard it from Steele. Few privatetransactions which took place a hundred and twenty years ago, areproved by stronger evidence than this. But we can by no meansagree with those who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiableof mankind may well be moved to indignation, when what he hasearned hardly, and lent with great inconvenience to himself, forthe purpose of relieving a friend in distress, is squandered withinsane profusion. We will illustrate our meaning by an example,which is not the less striking because it is taken from fiction.Dr. Harrison, in Fielding's Amelia, is represented as the mostbenevolent of human beings; yet he takes in execution, not onlythe goods, but the person of his friend Booth. Dr. Harrisonresorts to this strong measure because he has been informed thatBooth, while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying justdebts has been buying fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. Noperson who is well acquainted with Steele's life andcorrespondence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill to Addisonas Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. Harrison. The realhistory, we have little doubt, was something like this:--A lettercomes to Addison, imploring help in pathetic terms, and promisingreformation and speedy repayment. Poor Dick declares that he hasnot an inch of candle, or a bushel of coals, or credit with thebutcher for a shoulder of mutton. Addison is moved. He determinesto deny himself some medals which are wanting to his series ofthe twelve Caesars; to put off buying the new edition of Bayle'sDictionary; and to wear his old sword and buckles another year.In this way he manages to send a hundred pounds to his friend.The next day he calls on Steele, and finds scores of gentlemenand ladies assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table isgroaning under Champagne, Burgundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats.Is it strange that a man whose kindness is thus abused, shouldsend sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due to him?

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had introducedhimself to public notice by writing a most ingenious and gracefullittle poem in praise of the opera of Rosamond. He deserved, andat length attained, the first place in Addison's friendship. Fora time Steele and Tickell were on good terms. But they lovedAddison too much to love each other, and at length became asbitter enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil.

At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland,and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Addison was consequentlyunder the necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides thechief secretaryship, which was then worth about two thousandpounds a year, he obtained a patent appointing him keeper of theIrish Records for life, with a salary of three or four hundred ayear. Budgell accompanied his cousin in the capacity of privatesecretary.

Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but Whiggism. The Lord-Lieutenant was not only licentious and corrupt, but wasdistinguished from other libertines and jobbers by a callousimpudence which presented the strongest contrast to theSecretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irishadministration at this time appear to have deserved seriousblame. But against Addison there was not a murmur. He longafterwards asserted, what all the evidence which we have everseen tends to prove, that his diligence and integrity gained thefriendship of all the most considerable persons in Ireland.

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we think,wholly escaped the notice of all his biographers. He was electedmember for the borough of Cavan in the summer of 1709; and in thejournals of two sessions his name frequently occurs. Some of theentries appear to indicate that he so far overcame his timidityas to make speeches. Nor is this by any means improbable; for theIrish House of Commons was a far less formidable audience thanthe English House; and many tongues which were tied by fear inthe greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. GerardHamilton, for example, who, from fear of losing the fame gainedby his single speech, sat mute at Westminster during forty years,spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was Secretary to LordHalifax.

While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which he oweshis high and permanent rank among British writers. As yet hisfame rested on performances which, though highly respectable,were not built for duration, and which would, if he had producednothing else, have now been almost forgotten, on some excellentLatin verses, on some English verses which occasionally roseabove mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agreeably written,but not indicating any extraordinary powers of mind. These worksshowed him to be a man of taste, sense, and learning. The timehad come when he was to prove himself a man of genius, and toenrich our literature with compositions which will live as longas the English language.

In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, of whichhe was far indeed from foreseeing the consequences. Periodicalpapers had during many years been published in London. Most ofthese were political; but in some of them questions of morality,taste, and love casuistry had been discussed. The literary meritof these works was small indeed; and even their names are nowknown only to the curious.

Steele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunderland, at therequest, it is said, of Addison, and thus had access to foreignintelligence earlier and more authentic than was in those timeswithin the reach of an ordinary news-writer. This circumstanceseems to have suggested to him the scheme of publishing aperiodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear on the days onwhich the post left London for the country, which were, in thatgeneration, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. It was tocontain the foreign news, accounts of theatrical representations,and the literary gossip of Will's and of the Grecian. It was alsoto contain remarks on the fashionable topics of the day,compliments to beauties, pasquinades on noted sharpers, andcriticisms on popular preachers. The aim of Steele does notappear to have been at first higher than this. He was not illqualified to conduct the work which he had planned. His publicintelligence he drew from the best sources. He knew the town, andhad paid dear for his knowledge. He had read much more than thedissipated men of that time were in the habit of reading. He wasa rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style waseasy and not incorrect; and, though his wit and humour were of nohigh order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his compositionsan air of vivacity which ordinary readers could hardlydistinguish from comic genius. His writings have been wellcompared to those light wines which, though deficient in body andflavour, are yet a pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, orcarried too far.

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imaginary person,almost as well known in that age as Mr. Paul Pry or Mr. SamuelPickwick in ours. Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in asatirical pamphlet against Partridge, the maker of almanacks.Partridge had been fool enough to publish a furious reply.Bickerstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still morediverting than the first. All the wits had combined to keep upthe joke, and the town was long in convulsions of laughter.Steele determined to employ the name which this controversy hadmade popular; and, in 1709, it was announced that IsaacBickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a papercalled the Tatler.

Addison had not been consulted about this scheme: but as soon ashe heard of it, he determined to give his assistance. The effectof that assistance cannot be better described than in Steele'sown words. "I fared," he said, "like a distressed prince whocalls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone by myauxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not subsistwithout dependence on him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, "wasadvanced indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I intendedit."

It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. George'schannel his first contributions to the Tatler, had no notion ofthe extent and variety of his own powers. He was the possessor ofa vast mine, rich with a hundred ores. But he had been acquaintedonly with the least precious part of his treasures, and hadhitherto contented himself with producing sometimes copper andsometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All at once,and by mere accident, he had lighted on an inexhaustible vein ofthe finest gold.

The mere choice and arrangement of his words would have sufficedto make his essays classical. For never, not even by Dryden, noteven by Temple, had the English language been written with suchsweetness, grace, and facility. But this was the smallest part ofAddison's praise. Had he clothed his thoughts in the half Frenchstyle of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin style of Dr.Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the present day, hisgenius would have triumphed over all faults of manner. As a moralsatirist he stands unrivalled. If ever the best Tatlers andSpectators were equalled in their own kind, we should be inclinedto guess that it must have been by the lost comedies of Menander.

In wit properly so called, Addison was not inferior to Cowley orButler. No single ode of Cowley contains so many happy analogiesas are crowded into the lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller; and wewould undertake to collect from the Spectators as great a numberof ingenious illustrations as can be found in Hudibras. Thestill higher faculty of invention Addison possessed in stilllarger measure. The numerous fictions, generally original,often wild and grotesque, but always singularly graceful andhappy, which are found in his essays, fully entitle him to therank of a great poet, a rank to which his metrical compositionsgive him no claim. As an observer of life, of manners, of allthe shades of human character, he stands in the first class.And what he observed he had the art of communicating in twowidely different ways. He could describe virtues, vices, habits,whims, as well as Clarendon. But he could do something better.He could call human beings into existence, and make themexhibit themselves. If we wish to find anything more vividthan Addison's best portraits, we must go either toShakspeare or to Cervantes.

But what shall we say of Addison's humour, of his sense of theludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense in others, and ofdrawing mirth from incidents which occur every day, and fromlittle peculiarities of temper and manner, such as may be foundin every man? We feel the charm: we give ourselves up to it; butwe strive in vain to analyse it.

Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar pleasantryis to compare it with the pleasantry of some other greatsatirists. The three most eminent masters of the art of ridicule,during the eighteenth century, were, we conceive, Addison, Swift,and Voltaire. Which of the three had the greatest power of movinglaughter may be questioned. But each of them, within his owndomain, was supreme.

Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is withoutdisguise or restraint. He gambols; he grins; he shakes his sides;he points the finger; he turns up the nose; he shoots out thetongue. The manner of Swift is the very opposite to this. Hemoves laughter, but never joins in it. He appears in his workssuch as he appeared in society. All the company are convulsedwith merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the mirth,preserves an invincible gravity, and even sourness of aspect, andgives utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous fancies, withthe air of a man reading the commination service.

The manner of Addison is as remote from that of Swift as fromthat of Voltaire. He neither laughs out like the French wit, nor,like the Irish wit, throws a double portion of severity into hiscountenance while laughing inwardly; but preserves a lookpeculiarly his own, a look of demure serenity, disturbed only byan arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation ofthe brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His tone isnever that either of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that ofa gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of the ridiculous isconstantly tempered by good nature and good breeding.

We own that the humour of Addison is, in our opinion, of a moredelicious flavour than the humour of either Swift or Voltaire.Thus much, at least, is certain, that both Swift and Voltairehave been successfully mimicked, and that no man has yet beenable to mimic Addison. The letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansopheis Voltaire all over, and imposed, during a long time, on theAcademicians of Paris. There are passages in Arbuthnot'ssatirical works which we, at least, cannot distinguish fromSwift's best writing. But of the many eminent men who have madeAddison their model, though several have copied his mere dictionwith happy effect, none has been able to catch the tone of hispleasantry. In the World, in the Connoisseur, in the Mirror, inthe Lounger, there are numerous Papers written in obviousimitation of his Tatlers and Spectators. Most of those papershave some merit; many are very lively and amusing; but there isnot a single one which could be passed off as Addison's on acritic of the smallest perspicacity.

But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from Swift, fromVoltaire, from almost all the other great masters of ridicule, isthe grace, the nobleness, the moral purity, which we find even inhis merriment. Severity, gradually hardening and darkening intomisanthropy, characterises the works of Swift. The nature ofVoltaire was, indeed, not inhuman; but he venerated nothing.Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest examples ofvirtue, neither in the Great First Cause nor in the awful enigmaof the grave, could he see anything but subjects for drollery.The more solemn and august the theme, the more monkey-like washis grimacing and chattering. The mirth of Swift is the mirth ofMephistopheles; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. If,as, Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the happiness ofSeraphim and just men made perfect be derived from an exquisiteperception of the ludicrous, their mirth must surely be noneother than the mirth of Addison; a mirth consistent with tendercompassion for all that is frail, and with profound reverence forall that is sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moralduty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has ever beenassociated by Addison with any degrading idea. His humanity iswithout a parallel in literary history. The highest proof ofvirtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it. No kindof power is more formidable than the power of making menridiculous; and that power Addison possessed in boundlessmeasure. How grossly that power was abused by Swift and byVoltaire is well known. But of Addison it may be confidentlyaffirmed that he has blackened no man's character, nay, that itwould be difficult if not impossible, to find in all the volumeswhich he has left us a single taunt which can be calledungenerous or unkind. Yet he had detractors, whose malignitymight have seemed to justify as terrible a revenge as that whichmen, not superior to him in genius, wreaked on Bettesworth and onFranc de Pompignan. He was a politician; he was the best writerof his party; he lived in times of fierce excitement, in timeswhen persons of high character and station stooped to scurrilitysuch as is now practised only by the basest of mankind. Yet noprovocation and no example could induce him to return railing forrailing.

On the service which his Essays rendered to morality it isdifficult to speak too highly. It is true that, when the Tatlerappeared, that age of outrageous profaneness and licentiousnesswhich followed the Restoration had passed away. Jeremy Collierhad shamed the theatres into something which, compared with theexcesses of Etherege and Wycherley, might be called decency. Yetthere still lingered in the public mind a pernicious notion thatthere was some connection between genius and profligacy, betweenthe domestic virtues and the sullen formality of the Puritans.That error it is the glory of Addison to have dispelled. Hetaught the nation that the faith and the morality of Hale andTillotson might be found in company with wit more sparkling thanthe wit of Congreve, and with humour richer than the humour ofVanbrugh. So effectually indeed, did he retort on vice themockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that,since his time, the open violation of decency has always beenconsidered among us as the mark of a fool. And this revolution,the greatest and most salutary ever effected by any satirist, heaccomplished, be it remembered, without writing one personallampoon.

In the earlier contributions of Addison to the Tatler hispeculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from the first, hissuperiority to all his coadjutors was evident. Some of his laterTatlers are fully equal to anything that he ever wrote. Among theportraits we most admire "Tom Folio," "Ned Softly," and the"Political Upholsterer." "The Proceedings of the Court ofHonour," the "Thermometer of Zeal," the story of the "FrozenWords," the "Memoirs of the Shilling," are excellent specimens ofthat ingenious and lively species of fiction in which Addisonexcelled all men. There is one still better paper of the sameclass. But though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three yearsago, was probably thought as edifying as one of Smalridge'ssermons, we dare not indicate it to the squeamish readers of thenineteenth century.

During the session of Parliament which commenced in November1709, and which the impeachment of Sacheverell has madememorable, Addison appears to have resided in London, The Tatlerwas now more popular than any periodical paper had ever been; andhis connection with it was generally known. It was not known,however, that almost everything good in the Tatler was his. Thetruth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which we owe to himwere not merely the best, but so decidedly the best that any fiveof them are more valuable than all the two hundred numbers inwhich he had no share.

He required, at this time, all the solace which he could derivefrom literary success. The Queen had always disliked the Whigs.She had during some years disliked the Marlborough family. But,reigning by a disputed title, she could not venture directlyto oppose herself to a majority of both Houses of Parliament;and, engaged as she was in a war on the event of which herown Crown was staked, she could not venture to disgrace a greatand successful general. But at length, in the year 1710, thecauses which had restrained her from showing her aversion tothe Low Church party ceased to operate. The trial of Sacheverellproduced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less violentthan the outbreaks which we can ourselves remember in1820 and 1831. The country gentlemen, the country clergymen, therabble of the towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It wasclear that, if a general election took place before theexcitement abated, the Tories would have a majority. The servicesof Marlborough had been so splendid that they were no longernecessary. The Queen's throne was secure from all attack on thepart of Lewis. Indeed, it seemed much more likely that theEnglish and German armies would divide the spoils of Versaillesand Marli than that a Marshal of France would bring back thePretender to St. James's. The Queen, acting by the advice ofHarley, determined to dismiss her servants. In June the changecommenced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories exultedover his fall. The Whigs tried, during a few weeks, to persuadethemselves that her Majesty had acted only from personal disliketo the Secretary, and that she meditated no further alteration.But, early in August, Godolphin was surprised by a letter fromAnne, which directed him to break his white staff. Even afterthis event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley kept upthe hopes of the Whigs during another month; and then the ruinbecame rapid and violent. The Parliament was dissolved. TheMinisters were turned out. The Tories were called to office. Thetide of popularity ran violently in favour of the High Churchparty. That party, feeble in the late House of Commons, was nowirresistible. The power which the Tories had thus suddenlyacquired, they used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howlwhich the whole pack set up for prey and for blood appalled evenhim who had roused and unchained them. When, at this distance oftime, we calmly review the conduct of the discarded Ministers, wecannot but feel a movement of indignation at the injustice withwhich they were treated. No body of men had ever administered theGovernment with more energy, ability, and moderation; and theirsuccess had been proportioned to their wisdom. They had savedHolland and Germany. They had humbled France. They had, as itseemed, all but torn Spain from the House of Bourbon. They hadmade England the first power in Europe. At home they had unitedEngland and Scotland. They had respected the rights of conscienceand the liberty of the subject. They retired, leaving theircountry at the height of prosperity and glory. And yet they werepursued to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was neverraised against the Government which threw away thirteen colonies,or against the Government which sent a gallant army to perish inthe ditches of Walcheren.

None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck thanAddison. He had just sustained some heavy pecuniary losses, ofthe nature of which we are imperfectly informed, when theSecretaryship was taken from him. He had reason to believe thathe should also be deprived of the small Irish office which heheld by patent. He had just resigned his Fellowship. It seemsprobable that he had already ventured to raise his eyes to agreat lady, and that, while his political friends were in power,and while his own fortunes were rising, he had been, in thephrase of the romances which were then fashionable, permitted tohope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. Addison theChief Secretary, were, in her ladyship's opinion, two verydifferent persons. All these calamities united, however, couldnot disturb the serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious ofinnocence, and rich in its own wealth. He told his friends, withsmiling resignation, that they ought to admire his philosophy,that he had lost at once his fortune, his place, his Fellowship,and his mistress, that he must think of turning tutor again, andyet that his spirits were as good as ever.

He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his friends hadincurred, he had no share. Such was the esteem with which he wasregarded that, while the most violent measures were taken for thepurpose of forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, he wasreturned to Parliament without even a contest. Swift, who was nowin London, and who had already determined on quitting the Whigs,wrote to Stella in these remarkable words. "The Tories carry itamong the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election haspassed easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to beking he would hardly be refused."

The goodwill with which the Tories regarded Addison is the morehonourable to him, because it had not been purchased by anyconcession on his part. During the general election he publisheda political journal, entitled the Whig Examiner. Of that journalit may be sufficient to say that Johnson, in spite of his strongpolitical prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit to anyof Swift's writings on the other side. When it ceased to appear,Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed his exultation at thedeath of so formidable an antagonist. "He might well rejoice,"says Johnson, "at the death of that which he could not havekilled." "On no occasion," he adds, "was the genius of Addisonmore vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of hispowers more evidently appear."

The only use which Addison appears to have made of the favourwith which he was regarded by the Tories was to save some of hisfriends from the general ruin of the Whig party. He felt himselfto be in a situation which made it his duty to take a decidedpart in politics. But the case of Steele and of Ambrose Phillipswas different. For Phillips, Addison even condescended tosolicit, with what success we have not ascertained. Steele heldtwo places. He was Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner ofStamps. The Gazette was taken from him. But he was suffered toretain his place in the Stamp Office, on an implied understandingthat he should not be active against the new Government; and hewas, during more than two years, induced by Addison to observethis armistice with tolerable fidelity.

Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent on politics, and thearticle of news which had once formed about one-third of hispaper, altogether disappeared. The Tatler had completely changedits character. It was now nothing but a series of essays onbooks, morals, and manners. Steele therefore resolved to bring itto a close, and to commence a new work on an improved plan. Itwas announced that this new work would be published daily. Theundertaking was generally regarded as bold, or rather rash; butthe event amply justified, the confidence with which Steelerelied on the fertility of Addison's genius. On the second ofJanuary 1711, appeared the last Tatler. At the beginning ofMarch following appeared the first of an incomparable series ofpapers containing observations on life and literature by animaginary Spectator.

The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by Addison; and itis not easy to doubt that the portrait was meant to be in somefeatures a likeness of the painter. The Spectator is a gentlemanwho, after passing a studious youth at the university, hastravelled on classic ground, and has bestowed much attention oncurious points of antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed hisresidence in London, and has observed all the forms of life whichare to be found in that great city, has daily listened to thewits of Will's, has smoked with the philosophers of the Grecian,and has mingled with the parsons at Child's, and with thepoliticians at the St. James's. In the morning, he often listensto the hum of the Exchange; in the evening, his face isconstantly to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre. But aninsurmountable bashfulness prevents him from opening his mouth,except in a small circle of intimate friends.

These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of the club,the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and the merchant, wereuninteresting figures, fit only for a background. But the othertwo, an old country baronet and an old town rake, though notdelineated with a very delicate pencil, had some good strokes.Addison took the rude outlines into his own hands, retouchedthem, coloured them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir Rogerde Coverley and the Will Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar.

The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be both original andeminently happy. Every valuable essay in the series may be readwith pleasure separately; yet the five or six hundred essays forma whole, and a whole which has the interest of a novel. It mustbe remembered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a livelyand powerful picture of the common life and manners of England,had appeared. Richardson was working as a compositor. Fieldingwas robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. Thenarrative, therefore, which connects together the Spectator'sEssays, gave to our ancestors their first taste of an exquisiteand untried pleasure. That narrative was indeed constructed withno art or labour. The events were such events as occur every day.Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy baronetalways called Prince Eugene, goes with the Spectator on the waterto Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and isfrightened by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so faras to go to the theatre when the Distressed Mother is acted. TheSpectator pays a visit in the summer to Coverley Hall, is charmedwith the old house, the old butler, and the old chaplain, eats ajack caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears apoint of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from thehonest butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead.Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up;and the Spectator resigns his functions. Such events can hardlybe said to form a plot; yet they are related with such truth,such grace, such wit, such humour, such pathos, such knowledge ofthe human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, thatthey charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the leastdoubt that if Addison had written a novel on an extensive plan,it would have been superior to any that we possess. As it is, heis entitled to be considered, not only as the greatest of theEnglish essayists, but as the forerunner of the greatest Englishnovelists.

We say this of Addison alone; for Addison is the Spectator. Aboutthree-sevenths of the work are his; and it is no exaggeration tosay, that his worst essay is as good as the best essay of hiscoadjutors. His best essays approach near to absolute perfection;nor is their excellence more wonderful than their variety. Hisinvention never seems to flag; nor is he ever under the necessityof repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject. There are nodregs in his wine. He regales us after the fashion of thatprodigal nabob who held that there was only one good glass in abottle. As soon as we have tasted the first sparkling foam of ajest, it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at ourlips. On the Monday we have an allegory as lively and ingeniousas Lucian's Auction of Lives; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue,as richly coloured as the Tales of Scherezade; on the Wednesday,a character described with the skill of La Bruyere; on theThursday, a scene from common life, equal to the best chapters inthe Vicar of Wakefield; on the Friday, some sly Horatianpleasantry on fashionable follies, on hoops, patches, or puppetshows; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which willbear a comparison with the finest passages in Massillon.

It is dangerous to select where there is so much that deservesthe highest praise. We will venture, however, to say, that anyperson who wishes to form a just notion of the extent and varietyof Addison's powers, will do well to read at one sitting thefollowing papers, the two " Visits to the Abbey," the "Visit tothe Exchange," the "Journal of the Retired Citizen," the "Visionof Mirza," the "Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey," and the"Deathof Sir Roger de Coverley." [Nos. 26, 329, 69, 317, 159, 343, 517.These papers are all in the first seven volumes. The eighth mustbe considered as a separate work.]

The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the Spectatorare, in the judgment of our age, his critical papers. Yet hiscritical papers are always luminous, and often ingenious. Thevery worst of them must be regarded as creditable to him, whenthe character of the school in which he had been trained isfairly considered. The best of them were much too good for hisreaders. In truth, he was not so far behind our generation as hewas before his own. No essays in the Spectator were more censuredand derided than those in which he raised his voice against thecontempt with which our fine old ballads were regarded, andshowed the scoffers that the same gold which, burnished andpolished, gives lustre to the Aeneid and the Odes of Horace, ismingled with the rude dross of Chevy Chace.

It is not strange that the success of the Spectator should havebeen such as no similar work has ever obtained. The number ofcopies daily distributed was at first three thousand. Itsubsequently increased, and had risen to near four thousand whenthe stamp tax was imposed. The tax was fatal to a crowd ofjournals. The Spectator, however, stood its ground, doubled itsprice, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded alarge revenue both to the State and to the authors. Forparticular papers, the demand was immense; of some, it is said,twenty thousand copies were required. But this was not all. Tohave the Spectator served up every morning with the bohea androlls was a luxury for the few. The majority were content to waittill essays enough had appeared to form a volume. Ten thousandcopies of each volume were immediately taken off, and neweditions were called for. It must be remembered, that thepopulation of England was then hardly a third of what it now is.The number of Englishmen who were in the habit of reading,was probably not a sixth of what it now is. A shopkeeper ora farmer who found any pleasure in literature, was a rarity.Nay, there was doubtless more than one knight of the shire